Firenze Night One

Assuming nothing too exciting happens between tonight and going back to Rome tomorrow, I figured I would post here from my hostel in Florence while everything is still fresh. I've taken some pictures with my phone, so I'll post those on a second post later. Started the day out leaving at 10:30 from the Rome center, and missed my train by about 2 minutes, so I bought a ticket for the next one, and was into Florence by 1:30. Stopped by the hostel, called Archi Rossi Hostel, and dropped off my stuff and was reaaaally impressed. I have a private room with a bathroom, two double beds, a TV, a computer, a closet, and a spectacular view for a pretty decent price. So I was happy from the get-go. I started off in Piazzo Duomo, got a piece of pizza in the shadow of Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. I think it's my second favorite church of all time to the St. Francis church in Assisi. Architecturally gorgeous, and I paid 8 euro to climb up to the top of the duomo. It was an incredible view, and I stayed up there for probably a half hour to 45 minutes. After that, I ran into a couple of girls from Loyola, which was kind of funny. I said a quick hello to them then started roaming the city. I went to Ponte Vecchio, the famous bridge here that has a ton of jewelry shops on it. Brought some serious deja vu from when I was here in high school, more so than the duomo for some reason. I did some more walking around from there and stumbled into a market dedicated solely to chocolate. It was pretty awesome, and I bought some white chocolate with cranberries in it, which I am still working on. I then headed for the Mercato Centrale, which is where most of the leather and silk and such is sold. Did some shopping there (Mom finally got something for you) and then some more roaming, and headed back to the hostel for a short break since I had walked forever and climbed up to the duomo. I stayed in the room for half hour or so, then set out on a journey for a nice meal. I decided to splurge a bit, and went to a restaurant right next to the Cattedrale and had a 3 course meal with dessert. For antipasti, I had bread with melted mozzarella and prosciutto, delicious. For pasta, I had the house lasagna, delicious. For main course, I had Tuscan beef in some sort of sauce, delicious. Had a glass of the house chianti to drink, which was also delicious. Then, finished it off with a ricotta cheesecake with wild berry sauce. It was the single best piece of cheesecake man has ever created. It was a long day of telling myself "It's just money," but really worth it. I had a great day, and some seriously needed alone time. After dinner, I walked around a bit, then went to an Irish pub to watch the first half of the Juventus soccer game and have a Guinness. That was very nice, and here I am back at my hostel by 10 o'clock. I feel like an old man. So tired. But it was awesome, and I'm happy, so good times. I'll write again when I get back. Blues are up 3-0! Yeah, buddy. Buonasera!